


Ducks are cute

by freshlydead (minigami)



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, Pre-Joui War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minigami/pseuds/freshlydead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are young and bored and fifteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ducks are cute

**Author's Note:**

> english is not my first language and this is my first fic in this fandom. please be kind. this is not beta'd and i wrote it yesterday night at like 3am on my phone in the dark because i couldn't sleep.

They are young and bored and fifteen, sitting on the veranda of Shouyou-Sensei's house and watching the sun go down. Sensei is gone, doing something somewhere where teenagers aren't allowed, and the day has been hot, the hottest of the week. They feel sweat-sticky and brimming with something they are a couple of years too young to be able to call by name.  
  
Koutarou has his hair in a high ponytail, as always, the black swinging with the soft breeze. It's too long, though, and the end is wet and itchy where it touches the skin of his back, slipping under the neck of his yukata and getting on his nerves. He's trying to read, straining his eyes, fighting against the failing light and biting at a hangnail in his left thumb. Shinsuke paces, circular trips around the dying garden, bored and frustrated and annoyed at everything, and Gintoki sleeps. He naps, peaceful and noisy, because a bit of silence would be too easy for everyone else, and Gintoki only does easy when it's convenient for himself.  
  
It shouldn't come as a surprise when Takasugi stops right in front of them, tiny and bossy, his hair a tad too long and his hands on his hips.  
  
"Hey. Let's do something." he says. Koutarou lifts his eyes from the scroll he's been trying to read for the past half hour, and then just blinks. Waiting.  
"Fuck off, Chibisuke. I'm sleeping. " answers Gintoki, his eyes still closed.  
Shinsuke frowns, already angry.  
"No, you are not. Asshole. And anyway, who'd want to do anything with you? ", he can't see it because Gintoki's face is half in shadow, half hidden by his arm, but Koutarou can: the dying light of the day glints off his teeth. He's grinning, because Gintoki only does easy when it's fun, and pissing off Shinosuke is the easiest thing in the world. He feels too much about everything all of the time, wears his pride as a bullseye and his heart on his sleeve. And Gintoki is indeed an asshole, and he can't help provoking him.  
  
Koutarou speaks, interrupting Gintoki and what probably would have been the fastest and dirtiest way of giving up on the possibility of doing something not boring.  
  
"I saw a duck yesterday. " he tells them.  
"That's nice, Zura." answers Gintoki, deadpan.  
"Who the fuck cares, Zura." Shinsuke is also an asshole, and that's why he can't stand Gintoki.  
"I do. Ducks are cute. They live in ponds, lakes and other bodies of water. Also, it's not Zura, it's Katsura."  
"Zura, is there a point to this or is this just you being weird?", asks Gintoki, still sprawled on the wooden floor. His yukata is too short on him, and Koutarou can see more of his legs he's comfortable with. He wishes Gintoki would stop growing already. Lately he's been hitting growth spurt after growth spurt, outrunning the frequency Sensei can buy him new clothes and leaving Koutarou and Shinsuke behind.  
  
Especially Shinsuke.  
  
"It's not Zura, it's Katsura. " he answers. Shinsuke snorts, his deriding expression invisible in the growing darkness. After years and years, though, Koutarou has gotten good at ignoring him. "And there is a point. There is a point to everything."  
"Except to asshole, here." says Shinsuke, looking at Gintoki. "What are you implying, anyway?"  
Koutarou sighs, arms himself with patience, rolls up the text he was reading.  
"I saw a duck yesterday. In the pond."  
  
His friends are fucking thick, as Gintoki would say, and that's why it still takes them a couple of seconds to understand what he's implying.  
  
  
And that's the story of how they ended swimming naked in one of the smelly man made lakes the farmers of the village used to water their crops, the summer air still warm even though it was night already and their screams and laughter making the nesting ducks that lived on the shore fly away in terror. Fifteen years later, Koutarou will see Gintoki's puzzled expression when he looks at Elizabeth, and the memory will hit him and leave him bittersweet and a bit breathless.


End file.
